A spin from another thread, a very important subject indeed, if not the most important.

Money, money, money. A neccesary evil, by some…a universal “motivator’ by other. It doesnt matter if you are rich or poor, all it matters is to have money….:-).

How much it will cost to start seasteading? and how to get the money? These 2 questions are very interesting, because they are relative in nature. Why? Because they are function of the size of the seastead. So, it seems that before talking money we have to talk size first. For the purpose of keeping this disscusion down to Earth, I would hope that we can put the pipe down for a second and leave the multi billion dollars, 5000 ft Megaseastead, pop.20,000 souls, out of this debate.

“Just talking about seasteading won’t build seasteads or make seasteading happen. Knowing the Path and Walking on the Path are two different things. We seem to know the Path. All the research and a general accepted idea points toward ferrocement built mobile, modular, floating platform seasteads as being the Path. Walking on the Path= forming an investment group and rising capital. Yes, the MONEY is here. Yes, we all have some SORT of money. What I meant is that some have less and some have more. But what both have in common is the dream of seasteading, which is a constant. So, all this like minded individuals shud start talking dollars and sense now if they really want to seastead. Whats a reasonable amount that’s acceptable for the “have less” and for the “have more” to contribute towards the initial investment capital to start seasteading? How many “ready to move now” shud be there to start with? You tell me….or, let me tell you and see if we agree.

@ least 20 and @ least $ 5000 a piece as initial investment. And thats only a minimum to get your foot into the door,…Now 20 “seasteaders” have a working capital of $100k! Have a drink! A small step for man but a big leap for seasteading! After the initial eupforia,…whats next? Well, get organized, AGAIN. 2 Teams:

The Design & Construction Team. Responsible for finalizing the design of the Module, plan of forms, stability letter, CAD, etc, ready to go with “every nut and bolt in the right place” and a realistic estimate of the construction costs.

about seasteading won’t build seasteads or make seasteading happen. Knowing the Path and Walking on the Path are two different things. We seem to know the path. As Farmer well said it “….. is really no engineering left to do.” That’s called Knowing the Path. Ferrocement built mobile, modular, floating platform seasteads. That’s the Path.

We’re part way there. 1/3 perhaps.

if the second is construction,

and the third is celebration of manifestation.

Organizational meant Walking on the Path= forming an investment group and rising capital. Yes, the MONEY is here. Yes, we all have some SORT of money. What I meant is that some have less and some have more. But what both have in common is the dream of seasteading, which is a constant. So, all this like minded individuals shud start talking dollars and sense now if they really want to seastead. Whats a reasonable amount that’s acceptable for the “have less” and for the “have more” to contribute towards the initial investment capital to start seasteading? How many “ready to move now” shud be there to start with? You tell me….or, let me tell you and see if we agree.

@ least 20 and @ least $ 5000 a piece as initial investment. And thats only a minimum to get your foot into the door,…Now 20 “seasteaders” have a working capital of $100k! Have a drink! A small step for man but a big leap for seasteading! After the initial eupforia,…whats next? Well, get organized, AGAIN. 2 Teams:

The Design & Construction Team. Responsible for finalizing the design of the Module, plan of forms, stability letter, CAD, etc, ready to go with “every nut and bolt in the right place” and a realistic estimate of the construction costs.

If both team do their job right, we’re up to somthing. Then, start building the first Module. The “floor model”. Finish, launch and start operate. Expend from there.

Ahem.. we already have that, for free, and with a lot more money.

TSI administration is the marketing and sales team.

Wheras this forum is the Design team.

If that’s what you called a “self-replicating atom-tribe”, I’m all for it.

Now, living @ anchor rafted up w/ other boaters, its nice and fun. Been there done that. But it will last directly proportional to the size of your savings account. After that, is back on land and get a job. We shud try to avoid the last part.

yes, because remember, the land lubbers are all foreigners.

Do you go to another country every time you want some cash?

Of course not, you have to have a local exchange medium.

I’ve talked about dinje and price barter calculation before.

This shud be the key aspect of seasteading. Make money WHILE having fun in the sun, rafted up @ anchor. Then is “anchor ahoy” heading “south” for a new adventure. And, YES, we shud keep on making money while we do that, too.

money?

So giving people gifts,

and then selling their debt to others.

Sure we can do that, though it’s optional.

Don’t see any plants or animals doing that.

All we really need, is water, food and shelter.

All of which we could provide ourselves, by foraging,

can also seed or provide nutrients to have stable sources,

just as all other plants and animals do on this planet.

We only need foreigners currency,

when we want to get something only foreigners have.

Food and water is aplenty.

Can make a watermaker,

it could use excess heat,

from cement furnace.

can fish for food, or forage on vacant land,

can also make mini agricultural plots on vacant land.

Unless, you Elspru are filthy rich and willing to foot the whole bill. But even rich, who would like to “seastead” by him/herself?

I dont know nothing about you or the other people who are posting here. I am not rich, but I have “some sort of money”. I can come up with $5k, for know.

I live on welfare in a subsidised apartment.

I have $2000 saved up, and $500 in the bank.

Planing on getting a ferrocement boat as soon as possible.

Am going to see a boat this sunday,

parents might lend me a $1000,

So I could buy it in full.

Can outfit it with various sustainable things,

like windmill, passive engine, ceramic furnace.

Though first I’ll have to get a bruce anchor and canoe.

For getting foreigners currency:

could offer beach people rides on the sailboat,

could do some delivery jobs perhaps,

can sell things produced on the boat.

such as ceramic bowls and cups.

For community:

Can organize events with other boaters.

Already registered on ic.org as an intentional community (We You Net).

I would say with a budget of 100K we should be able to get a structure afloat that has family house size – as far as i know nobody is building anything “house sized” anywhere right now – in the name of “seasteading.org” .

So i doubth that “we did it” – i think the budget that is “in talk” here is destinated to “discuss seasteading” not for building and float out a actual structure – at least not in the next couple of years…i am right? – or did i get the wrong message from reading the official communications….

In general i would see 100K as entrance budget for a “high end approach” – it is quite difficult to put that sum at the table for most people – and if we can not make it available for the mainstream – the whole thing will stay “elite” and not produce a “society relevant new option”.

We should probably do it reverse – look what is the sum the “average guy” can put on the table for housing purpose and then have a look how we can create a “floating home” with that, making it so attractive that it can compete with the land based housing market.

If the finance model is “we get it from an excentric millionaire” it will not work as a business – to work as a business you need to be able to SELL your product thousands of times to all kind of people over and over again. So the core is to have a sellable base product (module). Selling it to TSI to fund it – is not good enough – selling it to the general housing market is the key.

To come up with the right solutions you must look in the right direction. The question is not how much money has the Thiel Foundation availabe – the question is how much money has a family with housing needs available. What must we offer them to make housing in the suburbs of “seasteading marina district” a attractive option. What the current yacht industy is offering as “live aboard solutions” is not good enough – it is far to expensive far to elitist. I we must do much better.

Sounds good in general, but I’d think the money would be better off spent on production facilities for the seasteads (or modules, shells, whatever we’re calling them now). It seems like realistically TSI has the “high-road” version of this covered pretty well and is moving down that path, but there really isn’t any progress being made towards SFSs (that I know of). Ellmer (and others) are right that the main problem with producing ferrocement/concrete structures is just one of the facilities to build them easily and at reasonably price and quality. Many will be needed anyway, so if a bunch of money is going to be sunk I think it should be into the infrastructure for building, not into a limited number of modules.

Main question is, how would the joint ownership aspects of many strangers throwing down thousands on a single set of facilties work? If building different modules we could all split the costs of our module, but at some point there’d have to be joint ownership. You either need facilities to produce many, or one thing produced once for everyone. I’m not keen on all the business stuff, have legal guys worked out ways to handle this stuff when people inevitably quit, disagree, screw up, etc.? It would be ideal if there was some system to deal with this, where people could come and go without any major hit to the project (cause face it, it’s gonna happen, more likely if you met the people on a message board). That’s probably the biggest organizational issue, or at least is my main issue with matching x dollars on such a set up.

Also, realistically you’ll need to hire people for those teams. Not saying the investors shouldn’t be part of it too, but I doubt the same guys who are willing to commit the money will just so happen to be perfect picks to handle everything. Just accept you’ll have people investing who aren’t qualified to handle the day to day stuff and still have to hire people with experience. I’d think some experienced concrete people would be top on the list. Or I suppose you could just ask Ellmer, he seems to have done all this before.

Might be able to run the operation producing stuff besides just seasteads too. Then it could at least turn a profit or offset expenses regardless of the current state of the seasteading endeavor.

is not about TSI’s money. Now, ” …our copious amounts of money:”? Who is “we” and what is “ours”? I said ” I would hope that we can put the pipe down for a second.” and that included you too….. Let me clear few things for you. The money that TSI has, is not ours, not mine, and definately not yours. Is not even TSI’s money, sort of speaking. Thats the money for the CAUSE OF SEASTEADING. TSI is “managing” the money and so far they are doing a great job. Everybody there seems to be doing to the best of there abilities, and if they dont have a certain expertise, those of us who know, we are here to support them. But in no way tell them what to do with “their” money, or pretend that is “ours”.

Buying a boat and living @ anchor won’t make you a seasteader. Not even a sailor. Just the anchorage bum. This thread is about finding constructive ways for financing a SFS by a crew of owners-operators. I understand that as a Canadian this might be an odd idea, people working hard and do it themselvs, since you guys are used to all sort of goverment handouts. But, you can overpower your programming and join us, if you want.

Why am I not seasteading? Actually, I am. Planning for seasteading is seasteading.

is not “affiliated” with sesteading.org. If the numbers and idea presented and discussed here can provide valuble feedback for TSI and their projects, the more the better. Its our modest contribution to the cause. The budget “in talk” here is destinated to build and float an actual seastead in the next “whatever time frame”. Otherwise I would have posted it under “Dreaming/ Crazy Ideas/ Speculation.

I personally belive that seasteads will be very profitable. Not for profitability sake, but in the context of self-sufficiency. This belief is not “inceptual” in nature (due to the fact that I’d like to live on a seastead and somehow this idea “got stuck” to my subconscient). Not @ all. Its the result of experience and research. Let me mention a very important thing: I am talking about seasteading as floating communities, highly autonomous, on the high seas.

Yes, “To come up with the right solutions you must look in the right direction.” But what is the “right” direction? Is seasteading “business” the “regular” business of selling thousands of products (modules) to as many people as we can? Or is it in fact selling the seasteading “as a business” and a way of life? Some might say that its easier to sell a product then an idea,…What if we “sell” both? Lets say we can sell the mainstream person a module, or a part of a module. Ok. Since we are @ it, how hard is to sell him the idea that if we raft up all this modules and if he works on this floating island he will be making a very decent living (we will pay a “divident”), he will have more freedom and travel to see the word while being a part of the newest most advanced society on the planet?

Yes, there will be organizational issues. But what business doesnt have them? I havent seen one yet.

Melvar, in the “drydock for starting seasteading” thread – which was derivated from the “what should we do if we had a million dollar available to spend” thread – i mentioned that for structures of 20m size the “land handling/movement cost” is always higher than the building cost (material+workhours) itself.

So the idea to invest first in a facility to optimize this part is a very acertive one, especilally if you want to bring down the cost in the sense of mass production.

We should be aware that ANY facility floating drydock or land based shipyard with deepwater access that can spit out structures in the 20m /100 ton range as a mass product will cost quite a lot of money – ( talk million USD). This would be for a facility that allows to build that kind on structures in a one shot pour and put them afloat twice a week or so.

Affortunatly the way build a big facility to build a big product – is not the only way. You can build a house size structure in a much slower much more labor intensive process that needs little support by special facilities.

We built the shell structure mentioned earlier in this way in some 6000 workhours – it is room and floor equivalent of a 68 squarementer apartment at a cost of 331Euro per ton of displacement (=cubic meter living space). So to avoid the high entrance barrier of “facility” we could opt to build a couple of shell structures to create revenues – then use the money to build advanced facilities later that allow you to bring down the prices even more.

From the very beginning the structures are financed by their owners. No big upfront money is needed, expensive facilities come later.

The other option to avoid high entrance costs is to break down the module size further – mass produce small modules you can transport in a pick up in a small garage like facility – assemble them on the water to house sized single family platforms.

It has been shown, in the real-world, that ferrocement is cost-effective, when proffesionally built, or, with very good attention to detail and proceedures, even amateur construction. Shotcrete/Gunnite/Spraycrete is the fastest method and the framework can be reused. IF the structures are to be manufactured and floated from land, we need access to the water and canals to move them, thus my idea for the floating dry-dock. In order to find initial costs, first we have to determine a basic design and construction method. Next, we have to engineer it, so we know the materials list. Then, we can estimate the basic manufatured cost on a per-unit basis. So, first we have to determine what to build, then where to build it and what facilities we need.

Ferrocement can be done in backyards, if the size is no larger than alarge boat… Transport is dependant on the length, width and height of the design. For something large enough to replace the standard ‘home,’ It will not be a backyard project, unless you happen to own ocean-front property.

Thus, a dry-dock facility becomes absolutely necessary. Oddly enough, the average family is 3 people… That said, mine is already more than twice that size, make it for 9 and I can have company (in-laws, brothers and sisters, kids bf’s/gf’s, grandkids, etc.).

There’s the evidence you need to figure on needing various sizes.

Next, the things need to be adaptable for different usages. Now we need different types and different sizes…

So, we need a facility that can produce a number of size and type of hulls, for various applications.

Before we can budget a structure, we need several designs and a place to build them.

Spars can be built in a manner the resembles extrusion, if they are of ferrocement. One you get a certain amount made, it can be ballasted, as further construction continues, toward the ‘upper decks.’ That requires a barge-like facility, with room for the equipment and supplies, plus room to work. Seawater can be used as the ballast…

Hulls can be made in a floating dry-dock and floated, while being fitted and finished, but you still need a facility to produce them.

is not about TSI’s money. Now, ” …our copious amounts of money:”? Who is “we” and what is “ours”? I said ” I would hope that we can put the pipe down for a second.” and that included you too….. Let me clear few things for you. The money that TSI has, is not ours, not mine, and definately not yours. Is not even TSI’s money, sort of speaking. Thats the money for the CAUSE OF SEASTEADING. TSI is “managing” the money and so far they are doing a great job. Everybody there seems to be doing to the best of there abilities, and if they dont have a certain expertise, those of us who know, we are here to support them. But in no way tell them what to do with “their” money, or pretend that is “ours”.

As the seasteading community,

we are the “Cause of Seasteading”,

without us there would be no seasteading.

I’m sorry if you feel so disconnected from TSI,

which is strange considering you’re posting on TSI forums.

Buying a boat and living @ anchor won’t make you a seasteader. Not even a sailor. Just the anchorage bum.

See this is definietly a mental blockage that you have to overcome, to become a seasteader.

Realize that seasteading is nothing more than living on a boat, on the water.

Anchoring is how boats maintain location in shallow waters.

To maintain biological body, you need to have air, water, food and shelter.

People that sail on boats are sailors.

People that live on sea or water are seasteaders.

This thread is about finding constructive ways for financing a SFS by a crew of owners-operators.

SFS?

I understand that as a Canadian this might be an odd idea,

people working hard and do it themselvs,

since you guys are used to all sort of goverment handouts.

Yet you’re asking for handouts from people on the TSI forums.

That’s not really working hard is it?

Doing it for yourself?

You’ve stated you want other people to do all the work.

Since you’re gonna “pay them money”,

that you got as handouts.

But, you can overpower your programming and join us, if you want.

what us are you talking about?

you claim to be unassociated with TSI,

so I’m really unclear as to what camp you’re in.

Why am I not seasteading? Actually, I am. Planning for seasteading is seasteading.

I would say with a budget of 100K we should be able to get a structure afloat that has family house size – as far as i know nobody is building anything “house sized” anywhere right now – in the name of “seasteading.org” .

So i doubth that “we did it” – i think the budget that is “in talk” here is destinated to “discuss seasteading” not for building and float out a actual structure – at least not in the next couple of years…i am right? – or did i get the wrong message from reading the official communications….

In general i would see 100K as entrance budget for a “high end approach” – it is quite difficult to put that sum at the table for most people – and if we can not make it available for the mainstream – the whole thing will stay “elite” and not produce a “society relevant new option”.

We should probably do it reverse – look what is the sum the “average guy” can put on the table for housing purpose and then have a look how we can create a “floating home” with that, making it so attractive that it can compete with the land based housing market.

The housing market is highly inflated.

The cost of building a home is much less than it’s “market value”,

usually at least 3 or 4 times less than the price on the market.

so if a house costs $500,000, it probably only cost $125,000 to build.

Also note that “the averge joe” doesn’t expect to pay off a mortgage,

it’s really impossible most of the time, as many mortages are over 40 years,

which is more than the average lifespan of a homo-sapien in the 1800’s.

Point being that we really gotta focus on getting yourselves seasteading,

then we can get others to join us, as we’ll have more money,

from not having any mortgage/rent or other money-drains.

If the finance model is “we get it from an excentric millionaire” it will not work as a business – to work as a business you need to be able to SELL your product thousands of times to all kind of people over and over again. So the core is to have a sellable base product (module). Selling it to TSI to fund it – is not good enough – selling it to the general housing market is the key.

Note that the current housing market,

has been programmed into people for decades,

it’s what was called the “american dream”,

barbie doll mansions getting people early.

So we’d have to have similar propoganda,

of showing happy people seasteading,

To come up with the right solutions you must look in the right direction. The question is not how much money has the Thiel Foundation availabe – the question is how much money has a family with housing needs available. What must we offer them to make housing in the suburbs of “seasteading marina district” a attractive option. What the current yacht industy is offering as “live aboard solutions” is not good enough – it is far to expensive far to elitist. I we must do much better.

Wil

Agreed,

so one of the main things,

is to have people that can ferrosheath and build ferrocement boats.

It would then be best to have a bunch of free information available,

such as boat plans, and detailed descriptions of materials and building procedure.

Then people could build these boats,

and join us out on the water.

Of course some might decide to make concrete boat building a full time occupation,

and that’s completely fine as well, but one of the main things is teaching others to do it.

Melvar, in the “drydock for starting seasteading” thread – which was derivated from the “what should we do if we had a million dollar available to spend” thread – i mentioned that for structures of 20m size the “land handling/movement cost” is always higher than the building cost (material+workhours) itself.

So the idea to invest first in a facility to optimize this part is a very acertive one, especilally if you want to bring down the cost in the sense of mass production.

We should be aware that ANY facility floating drydock or land based shipyard with deepwater access that can spit out structures in the 20m /100 ton range as a mass product will cost quite a lot of money – ( talk million USD). This would be for a facility that allows to build that kind on structures in a one shot pour and put them afloat twice a week or so.

Affortunatly the way build a big facility to build a big product – is not the only way. You can build a house size structure in a much slower much more labor intensive process that needs little support by special facilities.

We built the shell structure mentioned earlier in this way in some 6000 workhours – it is room and floor equivalent of a 68 squarementer apartment at a cost of 331Euro per ton of displacement (=cubic meter living space). So to avoid the high entrance barrier of “facility” we could opt to build a couple of shell structures to create revenues – then use the money to build advanced facilities later that allow you to bring down the prices even more.

From the very beginning the structures are financed by their owners. No big upfront money is needed, expensive facilities come later.

The other option to avoid high entrance costs is to break down the module size further – mass produce small modules you can transport in a pick up in a small garage like facility – assemble them on the water to house sized single family platforms.

Wil

concretesubmarine.com

European Submarine Structures AB

Wil, I’ve never gotten around to doing so, so I thought I’d get it out of the way now:

I wanted to thank you for essentially single handedly pioneering the concrete submarine. Despite your detractors, I think you’re on to something valuable. As global instability continues to escalate: seasteading may even be mankind’s salvation against nuclear appocalyps. There aren’t enough stick welders out there to build the necessary living space out of steel.(forget the vertical boring mills required to make a decent bulkhead.)

I dont see a floating dry dock as a viable solution to start seasteading. A decent, operational floating dry dock will cost @ least half a million dollars. How would that make sense?…Pls prove me wrong. But thats just me… I do have access to a cheap building facitity here in Florida. I do agree that “Before we can budget a structure, we need several designs and a place to build them.” Well, the place is here. The design….now. On a personal note, I do have a design. I did presented here, several times. Like it or not, it is what it is. A floating platform, mobile and modular. Simple and cheap to build. Practical and efficient. Prove me wrong. Are there better designs? Bring it on.

Some might say, why you dont build it if you have the place and the design? Ultimately, seasteading its all about building a new nation, a better one. A nation is defined by its people and their will and actions, not by a slab of concrete floating on the ocean. We need the people first.

2) House sized startup ( floating homes prebuilt – rafted up in a “marina development suburb” floating homes, yachts do already exist just a facilitate of lower prices and easy raft up is needed)

3) Barril sized startup (produce base modules in the size of a barril, make them “easyly available” and let people raft them up to concrete shell platforms, ( of the size and form they want) to build their houses on this platforms)

————————————————————

As we have seen method 1 is not easy to implement due to the high entrance barrier. Method 2 could be in our reach if we had money for a facility that builds a prefab floating house structure once or twice a week. Method 3 is available for everybody and can be started from a garage with hundred USD starting budget.

In fact when ephemerisle was started people decided to do method 2 and 3 – They rafted up (rented) houseboats – and they rafted up barril float platforms. Think a moment what would have happened if we had not put a “festival end” some people would have decided to live permanently on their floating structure as well in the “houseboat village” as in the “barril platform village”. It would have developed into a kind of marina district where living permanently is welcome instead of banned as it is in most other marinas. The barril platform guys would have found out that barril floats are rotting away quite quickly and would have searchd “some kind of more permanent barril” ending up replacing them with concrete shell flotation devices – making them box shaped instead of round for easier “raftability” –

In fact the only reason why ephemerisle DID NOT develop into a permanent floating suburb was that there was no tolerance agreement with authorities and no jobs to maintain people there. So on the technical side we just need to make the floats a bit more permanent – which is easy – the hard part is the “management issues” like the “tolerance agreement” and the “city development” jobs, wastewater, etc…

In fact it does matter very little if the floats are hexagon or kite shaped, designed, standardized, whatever… what really matters is to choose the right spot to facilitate a “tolerance agreement” and jobs for that kind of “marina district development”.

I would suggest we focus on method 3 (barril size module) people can raft up platform sizes as they want – it is the lowest entrance barrier, the easiest building facility, it can grow to city size over time, we can mix it with platforms of house size and city block size anyhow.

But the PARAMOUNT question remains where is the SPOT where we can get the tolerance and the jobs. If we can get those fixed we can start floating out something next weekend.

2) House sized startup ( floating homes prebuilt – rafted up in a “marina development suburb” floating homes, yachts do already exist just a facilitate of lower prices and easy raft up is needed)

3) Barril sized startup (produce base modules in the size of a barril, make them “easyly available” and let people raft them up to concrete shell platforms, ( of the size and form they want) to build their houses on this platforms)

I would suggest we focus on method 3 (barril size module) people can raft up platform sizes as they want – it is the lowest entrance barrier, the easiest building facility, it can grow to city size over time, we can mix it with platforms of house size and city block size anyhow.

There are other options,

like getting an already built boat.

if it’s not ferrocement

then ferrosheathing it.

that way you can save a lot of money,

since the interior is already finished.

and the concrete makes it seastead worthy.

But the PARAMOUNT question remains where is the SPOT where we can get the tolerance

I’m working on it,

programming politicians and lawyers.

I’ve got some plans,

like voluntary constitution signing.

and the jobs.

once tribe be replicating,

there will be many opportunities to join.

meanwhile can join an intentional community at anchor.

If we can get those fixed we can start floating out something next weekend.